[Andrew Chambers]

I personally don’t believe in “Learning Styles”. The brain is simply too complex and learning too differentiated between people. And yes putting people in boxes is an issue. Everything from personality types to “learning styles” is usually (on a person by person basis) on a continuum…

This article might be of interest to some:

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/learning-styles/getting-over-learning-styles/

 

(Apologies if it has been proffered up before but I have little time to do this full course)

 

Extract from the above link:
One of the outcomes of students making decisions about how they will learn and what standards of performance they will strive for is customization. Students do the customization within the teachers’ framework. Teachers don’t attempt to do the impossible—predict students’ learning variations and design appropriate exercises. The teaching task becomes how to design a classroom situation that maximizes students’ opportunities to choose and to learn from the results of those choices.
Teachers then can focus on their most creative work—observing students’ actions and interceding to correct them. What do learners do with course materials? How do they tackle problems? What assumptions do they use? What do they do when they fail? Answers to those questions would most definitely improve our teaching.
 

[Andrew Chambers]

Unfortunately for the average Higher Ed situation you cant have that. It’s usually one presenter (the academic) who does everything. I would like to get tips about break out rooms and group work in webinar systems. I have seen show and tells going out onto the web and various web sites and this can be effective (and simple). But these are still most one way flows of show and tell. Aren’t we supposed to be moving away from Sage on the Stage?

Other suggestions? It’s a vexing issue.

[Andrew Chambers]

Laura, Machine assessment has little place at post grad coursework level. Students want to work on assignments and projects related to their work so they get a usable outcome. Mooc based computer assessment is not useful in such a circumstance… I have seen instances of large scale mcq type assessments used at undergrad level especially for large classes. In these circumstances it makes sense to be one component of a broader assessment strategy for the course. But it shouldnt be the whole strategy and I suspect this is what irks me the most about xMoocs…

Likewise we use little to no peer assessment on our program for very similar reasons. While there is peer work, team work etc there is no peer marking or peer assessment as such.  Students prefer to get feedback from the expert on the course. Having said this I have seen peer assessment used in other parts of our university to good effect but mostly at undergrad level.

[Andrew Chambers]

We use student support staff to help service and support our post graduate masters program. Seriously it couldn’t function without this team. DE is hard enough and even harder if you don’t have a person to call for assistance. They assist with everything from enrolling (to program and into Moodle), to help with submission of assignments, help with Moodle, acting on behalf of students who get in a pickle, Assisting with registration of marks in markbooks etc. Students love their support and always rate it highly. We have just added a Moodle admin specialist who will also help students with Moodle. This will also help greatly I suspect…

[Andrew Chambers]

That’s an interesting format Ridly. We dont do this but instead focus on the discussion component and readings delivered in PDF form in week level chunks. I prefer your approach but havent been able to get the traction to go down this path except for our “post grad study skills” tutorial which has now moved from a 120 page spiral A4 booklet to a more simplified and chunked (with activities) online course in moodle. it’s also supported via a forum. Something that was never possible before!

 

BTW the study skills tutorial is available free as open source content as a Moodle course backup if anyone is interested…

[Andrew Chambers]

To be honest Rasmussen I’m not a fan of cMoocs (Connectivist Moocs) for traditional courses and subjects. It’s too easy to get lost or not know what to do. Yes it can be a great learning experience but it can also be a little much. xMoocs like Coursera are another matter and I still can’t see them being better than a regular university subject (and its interesting/telling that very very few arent full courses at credit level). Too many issues with assessment, size peer work etc. I think eventually light bulbs will go on and most courses will fall into a more “traditional” but enhanced DE mode of delivery familr to those working in the area at present.

[Andrew Chambers]

Philip, what tools and techniques have you tried in Moodle? We have a very successful online program that uses Moodle and discussion forums as one of the main tools. What have you been trying?

[Andrew Chambers]

Wow, thanks for that link. That looks very interesting…

[Andrew Chambers]

To answer Megan in terms of our program (MBT) our small classes are facilitated with online activities taking place via weekly discussion forums. (Contracted) Facilitators are encouraged to hold debates, brainstorms, posed questions, small group etc all in this format. This works very well but does need enhancement via more traditional DE type content and also media such as video recordings and powerpoint summaries and the like. Basically text only discussion isn’t quite enough. Luckily technologies are pretty straight forward now to enable use of media much more simply… We engage them from at Program level, course level and especially at class level (where they are taught). Having dedicated student services staff to assist them as required makes a big difference as well.

[Andrew Chambers]

Stuart, I work an an MBA type program (Master of Business and Technology) that is 3/4 distance based. We have a 1:28 ratio and usually have 3-4 classes per course. This works very well. I would call our program/courses OC – Online Courses. They are not massive and are not open. Our university (University of New South Wales) is about to announce their Dist Ed/elearning strategy. My understanding is that “Massive” is not being proferred as a solution. I have worked on this program for the last few years as the main ed developer and seen how majorly successful it so I can only agree with their stance…

[Andrew Chambers]

James et al,

I run session on study skills and exam prep via Blackboard Collaborate for our postgrad masters students. We record sessions. At present there is an issue with generating everything in one recording. Other than that we also insist if the tools are used for actual class related webinars that facilitators embed the recording into the Moodle discussion forum at the appropriate weekly slot/thread. This ensures students who couldnt take part can ask questions and discuss the content. We dont use any other backchannel during the session but I can see how use of twitter could be an advantage. There is still a major debate internally within the program about whether our asynchronous program should use synchronous tech that requires students to meet real time. Personally I dont see an issue due to recordings and open discussion but others do.

[Andrew Chambers]

I was talking to a colleague/peer today and she dropped this course into the conversation. The next sentence was “15 weeks!”.  Consider simplifying the duration as well as the activities… I’m finding little time to take part due to the term duration and breadth of reading and activities required. For a model course you might like to take a look at MOOCMOOC. That was very successful when I took it but much shorter and very social and interactive in a sense…

[Andrew Chambers]

Great stuff Gary. Yes I seem to recollect your name coming up at some stage…

Your use of video is very interesting. We are investigating similar things ourselves. However at present we are considering individual participant contributions via video. However I can see from the quality of the product produced that group ones would likely work better (due to mix of skills required to produce the outcome). Of course for AACSB accreditation purposes (which is one of the drivers for us) we need to follow their guidelines on “oral presentations” and use of individual assessable tasks.

Your sim also sounds interesting. Most of our courses use discussion and activities around case studies and we have little use of interactive sims, role plays or the like. The “Everest” sim is used by some in MBA but of course that is a commercial product.

Would be interested to here the range of activity types that others use to support their business teaching practices…

 

Andrew

 

[Andrew Chambers]

Thanks for the SCONUL reference Elizabeth. I teach study skills and part of that is information literacy (the other part being academic skills). If my existing workshop wasnt so full of content I think I would add something on this too!

[Andrew Chambers]

Agreed. But as I said we can’t give our student cohort all an iPad. So we have no choice but to deliver “content” to all devices. I believe from an email today this is being looked at by IMS Global Consortium in a project called: Interactive & Connected Educational e-Book (ICE)

Description: Download pdf

Our students are professional business people so they are very familiar with all sorts of devices and so knowledgeableness isn’t an issue…

We presently deliver via PDF and would continue to do so for those without access to an ePub3 reader…

 

 

[Author]

Posts